Kent McGowen: Former Deputy, Murder Conviction, and 20 Years in Prison

A lawman raised to serve

Kent McGowen begins his conversation with Brent Cassity far from the courtroom, describing a childhood built around service and stability. He was born in Midland, Texas, and moved to Houston in 1970 when he was five after his father started an oil and gas exploration company. “I had a great great family, great upbringing,” McGowen says, adding that he grew up with “two older brothers and a younger sister,” including a brother who later had “an impeccable career for 31 years” as a police officer.

McGowen says the draw toward law enforcement came from both his family culture and the people he admired. “My mom and dad were great people,” he tells Brent. “They’re very altruistic. They’re always helping people.” He also had veterans in his family, served in the Air Force, later joined the Air National Guard, and worked in the Air Force Reserves as an instructor before deciding that “all I wanted to do is be a police officer.”

His first law enforcement job came while he waited on the long hiring process for the Houston Police Department. McGowen says he took a commission with a county sheriff’s department northwest of Harris County, then joined HPD, where the academy was not difficult because “I was already licensed” and had police experience. He describes himself then as “always by the book,” saying, “Rights right, wrongs are wrong.”

The shooting that changed everything

The case that defined the next three decades began on August 25, 1992, when McGowen was serving an arrest warrant on Susan White. In the episode, he gives Brent his account of the shooting in vivid detail. “I see the suspect stand there,” McGowen says. “She had her right elbow and right hip, hand goes in her right hand.” He says in that moment, “you do tunnel vision,” and what he saw was “a gun in her hand.”

McGowen says he had a flashlight in his left hand and his Glock in the other as he yelled commands. “Drop the gun. Drop the gun,” he recalls saying. According to McGowen, White “never said a word,” then came up with the gun and “points the gun right at my face.” He tells Brent, “I remember like it happened four minutes ago,” and says he warned her a third time: “Drop the gun. I’m going shoot you.”

Susan White was killed, and McGowen went from deputy to defendant. Brent frames the central question of the episode directly: “What happens when the person sworn to uphold the law becomes the one standing trial for murder?” McGowen was accused of murdering White, convicted, won a new trial after that conviction was overturned on appeal because of legal error, and then was convicted again by a second jury in 2002.

Conviction, silence, and prison

McGowen maintains in the interview that he did not murder Susan White and that the public story around the case overwhelmed the evidence. “For 34 years I’ve been battling this to get the truth out there,” he tells Brent. Looking back, he says one of his “biggest mistakes” after the shooting was “not speaking,” explaining that he stayed quiet because of “the advice of others.”

That silence, McGowen believes, left a vacuum for others to fill. He says “tabloid trash got involved in my case,” along with “documentaries, books, whatnot.” In his view, those accounts shaped how people saw him before and after trial. “That played a huge part and not only me getting convicted,” he says, “they played a huge part in me not getting out.”

The prison sentence took his badge, career, reputation, and freedom. Brent states that McGowen served a 20-year sentence for a crime he “has never stopped insisting he did not commit.” McGowen says he was “eligible for parole for 15 years before I got out” and was “10 times up for parole,” a long stretch that became its own punishment after the courtroom phase ended.

For a former police officer, prison carried a particular weight. Brent asks what it does “when the system they trusted becomes the system that convicts them,” and McGowen’s answer runs through the episode in pieces: the loss of identity, the anger at how the case was portrayed, and the daily need to survive while still insisting the official story was wrong.

Rebuilding through his own account

McGowen’s rebuilding has centered on telling the story he says he should have told decades earlier. His book, Reasonable Doubts: How Rumor and Innuendo Convicted Deputy Kent McGowen of Murder, is his attempt to put his version of the case in one place. Brent tells listeners, “There’s always two sides to every story and we’re going to hear Kent’s side today,” making clear the episode is not a retrial, but a chance to hear directly from the man at the center of it.

McGowen also says his post-prison life includes helping other people he believes were wrongly convicted. “I root for the underdog,” he tells Brent. “I’m helping a number of people, innocent people I know that are in prison.” He says that work includes “dealing with their families” and trying to help them press for attention on their own cases.

Near the start of the conversation, McGowen tells Brent he is “doing better the last few months,” a modest line after decades of court fights, prison time, and public scrutiny. The episode leaves listeners with hard questions about evidence, media narratives, reasonable doubt, and the human cost when a person who once wore the badge ends up living on the other side of the bars.